Using the flag the Bush Administration were able to avoid any real questioning by the media in the followup to the war and the party of 9/11 will still use patriotic words in thier cons to get respect from the media and thier silence on major issues where they attack the people but not the media (attack the media and they will fight back, attack anyone else and they won't unless it can't be ignored anymore).

3. Launched a war on the economy by pushing fake economics while calling it patriotism and waving a flag (probably trying to destroy the country so they don't have to answer for their 9/11 crimes and the mountain of lies and cons after that).

The list goes on. the most important point to make here is that the Bush Administration was able to attack America, lead us into unnecessary and detrimental wars that cost the Nation alot of money (which they hide in thier rhetoric) for personal profit, collapse the economy in 2008 (which was probably a heist). trample over the Constitution, and hide all their crimes . Now the people, after years of media programming, will immediately become more Nazi-like when the Flag is shown (emotional but lacking reason and willing to do anything - any sort of treason or immoral act - for thier leaders - who they obey without question - for the Flag and NOT the Constitution which the Flag is supposed to represent but probably no longer does).

Fox News: Study: U.S. Flag 'Primes' Voters Toward Republican Viewpoints (i.e. viewpoints based on lies and treason that lack facts but are emotionally easy to digest)Just a glimpse at the American flag can sway voters, even Democrats, toward more Republican voting behavior, attitudes and beliefs, a new two-year study says. The authors, from the University of Chicago, Cornell University and Hebrew University, say the research proves the American flag has a powerful effect on voters.

Every country has a flag and every country asks his citizen to stand with respect before the flag, often without question because that is the tradition. Nazi's loved thier flags, stood with respect before them, used a bunch of them in parades, committed genocide and mass murder for their flags. Basically, they honored their flag to the point of madness as is normal for any cult.

Note: After GOP/Cheney/Bush/9/11-traitors protested, Greenspan tried to walk back his comments, badly.

Clearly devotion to a Flag encourages Nazism.

The Flag has proven to be the most effective weapon by our Nations enemies (especially the party that did 9/11) is keeping and exerting control over the population without having to answer to laws and giving them the freedom to make laws for personal profit or to reduce rights in the constitution to crush opponents (probably what the "Patriot Act" was initially started and used for, i.e. stopping anyone from exposing the truth of 9/11. The flag helped the party of 9/11 way too much to not make lack of respect for it a cultural issue that is important for the Nations sanity. Clearly worshiping the Flag without question like the Muslims worship the Quran as a sacred object makes the Nation religious and cultural tyrants, murderers and genocidal maniacs. of course, Party of 9/11 is also pushing Christianity as blind religious obedience is what tyrants and nazis count on for control and religion gives that to them... that we we used to have the first Amendment till we deiced to ignore the obvious and worship the traitors that are attacking us (A national case of Stockholms Syndrome?)

JILLIAN MELE: And the Houston Astros moving onto the ALCS after knocking out the Red Sox in Boston in Game 4. And how about this: They celebrated, obviously, with champagne in the locker room. How else do you celebrate? And patriotic outfielder Josh Reddick donning an American flag Speedo. So, you know, good morning, hey.

BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Absolutely.

AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Was that a water hose? I mean that wasn't champagne.

The flag is a symbol, and there is no agreement as to what it actually symbolizes. By design, the flag’s thirteen stripes stand for the original 13 states, none of which would ban slavery. The 14th state, Vermont, was the first state to ban slavery, doing it weakly in its 1777 state constitution (not that the principle was enforced: in 1802 the Town of Windsor sued a State Supreme Court justice to get him to take care of an elderly, infirm slave he had dumped on town welfare; the town lost the case). The original flag had 13 stars for those same original 13 states, and it took over 70 years before all 36 stars in the 1865 flag represented states without slavery (but not states without racist Jim Crow laws and the freedom to lynch without consequence). The colors of the stars and stripes had no meaning in 1777, when it was adopted, as distinct from the colors of the Great Seal that did have meaning.

Then there’s the Star Spangled Banner, written by a slave owner in celebration of the defense of a slave state in a battle against the British. The British force included a contingent of former slaves who were promised freedom if they fought for the British. How many people at the beginning of a sports event understand “the land of the free and the home of the brave” in its deepest historical irony?

All in all, the typical American flag ritual is an exercise in mindless obedience in which any talk of real meaning interferes with the underlying objective of fealty to the state. The ritual is totemic and totalitarian, but not so extreme as the Two Minutes Hate required by the Party in George Orwell’s novel “1984.” The difference is one of degree, not kind, and the enemy in both instances is rational, individual thought.

Mindless obedience has long been a goal of self-appointed patriots, wrapping themselves in the flag to defend indefensible domestic injustice or criminal wars (both of which we have more than our share these days). There is no meaning in the demand to “respect” any abstract symbol, much less one as drenched in horrifying contradiction as the American flag. In a mature world, respect is what you earn, not what you demand. In a mature world, a person is respected for who and what he or she is and does, not for any office or position of authority. We do not live in a mature world.

Some quarterbacks are more obtuse than others

More than a year ago, San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick first sat quietly, then kneeled during the national anthem at the beginning of his team’s games. The gesture was quiet, respectful, and principled. And Kaepernick was articulate in his explanation that he was objecting to bigotry and injustice in America, and especially to police suffering no consequences for shooting and killing unarmed black men. For this objection, he has been blacklisted by the National Football League owners, the same owners who turkey-danced in all directions last weekend in a panic to find the right response to an intensity of protest they mostly neither shared nor understood, beyond the need for public relations management.

No one has a coherent argument for saluting the flag, because there isn’t one. The flag ritual is an expression of our secular religion, American Exceptionalism. Coherence and reason are at best irrelevant and require suppression before they spread and become a threat. The result is widespread confusion among a large portion of the population, expressed as sincerely and sadly as anyone by New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees. Brees started by making it about President Trump, which it’s not, and then went on to say with inarticulate imprecision: “I disagree with what the President said and how he said it. I think it’s very unbecoming of the office of the President of the United States to talk like that to the great people like that.”

Well, let me say this first: Do I think that there is inequality in this country? Yes, I do. Do I think that there is racism? Yes, I do. I think there’s inequality for women, for women in the workplace. I think that there’s inequality for people of color, for minorities, for immigrants.

But as it pertains to the National Anthem, I will always feel that if you are an American, that the National Anthem is the opportunity for us all to stand up together, to be unified and to show respect for our country, to show respect for what it stands for, the birth of our nation.

We will—there will always be issues with our country. There will always be things that we’re battling, and we should all be striving to make those things better.

But if the protest becomes that we’re going to sit down or kneel or not show respect to the flag of the United States of America and everything that it symbolizes and everything that it stands for and everything that our country has been through to get to this point, I do not agree with that.

I feel like that is a unifying thing.

The national anthem and standing for the national anthem and looking at the flag with your hand over your heart is a unifying thing that should bring us all together and say, “You know what? We know that things are not where they should be, but we will continue to work and strive to make things better, to bring equality to all people: men, women, no matter what your race, creed, religion – it doesn’t matter – equality for all.” But if you’re an American, then I will always believe that we should be standing, showing respect to our flag with our hand over our heart.

Well, that’s just nuts. And it hasn’t worked. Historically, all the flag worship in the world has done little to assure justice. Like an ungodly number of his fellow citizens, Brees is deep in American denial. His is a common knee-jerk response, absent logical thought despite some accurate perceptions. Yes, it sort of sounds good – until you try to figure out what it means. Knee-jerk reactions are not about knees but jerks. And when people like Brees are standing for the national anthem, what are they really standing for?

Quotes

"Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty." - Rumi

"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that." - Joseph Campbell

"Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history." - Carl Jung

"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." - George Washington

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” - Dalai Lama

“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison. When the door is so wide open?” ― Rumi